


(you’re so cold) enough to chill my bones

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 14:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10362369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: She never truly meant for him to know.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been listening to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6MBwHUfgRg) on repeat for like three days and it FINALLY gave me the push to finish/rework an idea I started weeks ago. This you should take as a warning, because it's been a rough couple of months and all of my ideas lately are on the unhappy side. Sorry?
> 
> I'm waaaaaaaay behind on comment replies because, again, rough months. I'll try to catch up soon, but at this point I can't promise anything.
> 
> Thanks very much for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

“What the fuck is that?”

Jemma’s blood runs cold, but she has practice enough at deception not to physically react to Grant’s tone. She just goes on folding laundry, perfectly calm, perfectly normal, no sign at all she knows what might have angered him so.

“What’s what?” she asks—casual, unconcerned.

She’s so focused on maintaining her act (and, somewhere in the back of her mind, a rambling train of thought: how could he know, what could give it away, this must be something else—) that she doesn’t hear him move. One moment she’s folding laundry, the next she’s been yanked away from the bed, pulled and turned to face the mirror above the dresser, her back to Grant’s chest and the reflection of his face furious as he grips her jaw, turning her head to reveal—

Oh. Oh no.

“ _That_ ,” he grits out, releasing her jaw. His palm comes to rest against her clavicle as his thumb digs into the mark on the side of her neck. It’s low enough that she missed it before, hidden by the collar of her shirt and the shadow of her hair, but now…

But this is nothing. She reaches for calm, cloaks herself in indifference as she meets Grant’s eyes in the mirror.

“It’s a hickey,” she says. “You’ve left plenty of them before, what has—?”

“This,” he interrupts, “isn’t mine.” His grip tightens slightly; not enough to cut off her air supply, but enough to threaten it—to imply the possibility. “I know my own work, Jemma. This isn’t it.”

She’s trembling. He must be able to feel it, holding her as close as he is, yet his expression remains coldly enraged. There’s not a drop of sympathy—of regret—for her fright.

Perhaps that should scare her further; instead, it only infuriates her, as much as the fact that she’s frightened at all. The fury tempers her fear, gives her courage she never thought she’d need.

Though her heart still races, her spine is straight as she lifts her chin.

“No,” she agrees calmly. “It isn’t. Does that bother you?”

It must; there’s unusual force in his grip when he moves her again, force enough that the dresser rattles as he slams her back against it.

(The sound of breaking glass suggests something’s fallen. She hopes, distantly, that it’s one of his trinkets and not one of hers.)

“What are you doing?” Grant asks, voice soft and deadly. His fingers dig painfully into her shoulders as he searches her eyes. “Are you _trying_ to piss me off?”

Jemma closes her eyes.

Honestly, she doesn’t know. It was her plan, at first—to make Grant angry, make him _hurt_ the way she’s been hurting, by being unfaithful. But the act itself served to cool her ire and soothe her wounds. Knowing something he didn’t, knowing he didn’t _know_ , was its own kind of revenge.

Now that he’s found her out…

She never thought this far. She thought of cheating on him, of throwing it in his face and having her say about the way he’s treated her since becoming head of HYDRA, but she never considered—never _let_ herself consider—how he might react.

Her back is already aching where it made contact with the rounded edge of the dresser. Grant is often rough with her, but he’s never been violent. She wonders if this might push him over the edge.

“No,” she says, opening her eyes. She barely recognizes her own voice. “Actually, I was trying to hurt you.”

Grant’s eyes narrow.

“I have your attention now, don’t I?” she asks. “That’s a first.”

He huffs a disbelieving laugh, fingers flexing on her shoulders. “Is that what this is? You’re feeling _neglected_?”

“Yes.” Her satisfaction surges at the way he pulls back a little. He was expecting her to deny it, to claim something worse, something more dignified. She’s caught him off guard. “And if you actually spared me more than a passing thought, you’d know exactly why.”

For half a heartbeat, he’s visibly thrown. Then his face darkens and his fingers dig back into her skin and he looms over her, fury palpable enough to make him seem even taller.

“You lost your chance to play victim the second you let someone touch you.”

“Do you feel small?” she asks. “Are you hurt? Do you feel unnecessary and replaceable and worthless?” She tilts her head, evaluating his expression. “Or are you only angry?”

“You _don’t get to play victim_ ,” he bites out, giving her a firm shake. “You think I’ve neglected you? That I haven’t appreciated you enough? Is that it? Because whatever you wanna say about me, I haven’t even _looked_ at another woman since we’ve been together.”

He doesn’t look wounded. He looks furious. She knows the set of his jaw, recognizes it from the countless times he’s been violent in her presence. He’s ready to hurt someone.

But she’s already been hurt, albeit emotionally. Anger and even fear have abandoned her now, leaving only an exhausted sort of numbness behind.

“You’ve barely looked at _me_ ,” she says. “Your fidelity is no defense for the way you’ve treated me.”

Grant scoffs. “But you think the way I’ve treated you is a defense for whoring around on me?”

It’s a harsh word, whoring, and she suspects its use is deliberate. A verbal slap—perhaps because he’s unwilling to deliver a physical one, or perhaps merely a prelude to it.

Either way, it barely stings. She’s been too often wounded by his behavior for a simple word to bother her.

He used to be an exemplary boyfriend. She loved him whole-heartedly and truly believed that he loved her in return—believed it so strongly she walked away from her friends and her morals, left SHIELD to follow him into a monster’s den of his own making.

Since he finished making it, though—since he established himself as head of this new HYDRA—things have changed. She’s not his top priority anymore.

In fact, she’s not a priority at all.

It feels like duty, like obligation; he kisses her awake and fucks her at night and his mind is elsewhere the entire time, sparing her not a single drop more attention than is necessary to see to their respective pleasure. She’s no longer his girlfriend or even his lover: she’s an item on his to-do list, just one more thing to check off every day.

Jemma gave up everything for their love—for the life together Grant promised her. And in response, he put her aside, boxed her away like a toy that’s fallen out of favor, only to draw her out when the mood strikes.

Which is exactly how he’s reacting now. He isn’t hurt that she’s been unfaithful, he’s _angry_. Angry that someone else played with his toy, that she wandered out of her box and made him pay attention to her when he didn’t want to.

“This is the longest conversation we’ve had since you took over HYDRA,” she says. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

Grant stares down at her, and for a moment she thinks…but no. His jaw shifts and his grip on her tightens again and there’s nothing in his eyes but fury.

“The only thing I need to be told,” he says, voice chillingly pleasant, “is who you let touch you.”

Heart heavy with defeat, Jemma shakes her head. “Nobody. He was nobody.”

“Really. And how far did you let this _nobody_ get?” He finally releases her shoulders, and as her blood rushes back into circulation, Jemma drags in a pained breath—that becomes a surprised exclamation halfway through when Grant rips her shirt right open. “Did you let him mark you anywhere else? Did you let him fuck you?”

He’s studying her torso, hunting for evidence of another man’s touch; there’s only suspicion on his face and not a drop of desire. Perversely enough, the absence hurts worse than the word _whoring_ did.

Shocked and stung back into anger, she shoves him away.

“That’s none of your business,” she snaps. She’s created just enough space to move, and so she slips past him and darts away from the dresser, shrugging her ruined shirt off as she goes. “How I let _anyone_ touch me is—”

“ _Is_ my business.” He catches her arm and swings her around so forcefully that her own momentum slams her into his chest. “Answer the question.”

He’s still only possessive, not hurt.

It’s infuriating.

“If he marked me anywhere else, I didn’t allow it. He wasn’t supposed to mark me _anywhere_.” She tips her chin up and gives him her most disdainful smile. “But yes, I did let him fuck me. And do you know what?”

Grant’s hand spasms around her arm. “What.”

“He was twenty times more satisfying than you’ve _ever_ been.”

The lie—a strike at his ego in the hopes of wounding him at last—is a step too far. A hard shove knocks her far off balance, and she stumbles back to sit heavily on the edge of the bed. Grant remains where he is, hands fisted at his sides.

“Stay,” he orders. “Do _not_ leave this room, Jemma.”

“Or what?” she asks.

His smile is anything but amused. “You don’t wanna test me right now. Stay.”

It’s not as though she has anywhere to be, but she resents being ordered about like a dog. She stands.

…Only to be immediately shoved back down.

“You wanted my attention?” he asks. “Congratulations, baby, you’ve got it. But if this _nobody_ you fucked has any brains at all, he has to know I’m gonna kill him for this. First sign I know, he’ll be gone. Which means I need to deal with him before I deal with you.”

She has to look away—from his cold eyes, his ugly smile, the truth of what she’s doomed her partner in vengeance to. Grant fists a hand in her hair and yanks her head back, forcing her to meet his gaze.

“Give me his name,” he murmurs, tone suddenly sweet. “Make it easy on yourself.”

Her anger is always so brief these days—just a quick flash of fury here and there, nothing capable of overcoming the weight of her constant, crushing despair—but she knows from experience that Grant’s can last years. However he’s decided to “deal” with her, a little cooperation now will do nothing to change it.

“No,” she says.

“Fine.” Jaw ticking, he releases her hair. “Stay.”

He pauses for a moment, perhaps expecting further argument, but Jemma finds the fight has gone out of her. She doesn’t think she really ever meant for Grant to know she’d been unfaithful; all her thoughts of telling him off, of wounding him with her actions as he’s wounded her with his, were only that: thoughts. Like the way she used to fantasize about taking one particularly odious professor down a peg, back at uni—she never would have _actually_ stood up and torn his published works to shred mid-lecture, but she certainly dreamt of it.

The telling-off she had planned for Grant was meant to stay a fantasy, she thinks. She would have held the knowledge of her indiscretion—the knowledge of his ignorance—as a comfort and a defense against his lack of care for her, and she never would have told him.

But he knows and he’s not wounded. Even now, he’s speaking of _dealing_ with her and ordering her to stay. He sounds like an angry boss, not a betrayed lover.

The only one she’s hurt with this is herself, it seems.

“Good,” he says, and goes to leave—only to turn back once he reaches the door. “Last chance. Tell me who.”

Jemma looks away, towards the dresser. The floor at the closer end of it is dotted with shattered glass, and she notes the empty space along the top where her little glass unicorn used to sit.

The unicorn was a gift from Skye—a playful taunt over her refusal to believe in magic, back before Skye (and all the rest of the team) hated her. Its destruction, here and now, feels somehow symbolic.

“Fine,” Grant says. “Be that way.”

With that, he’s out the door.

It slams shut behind him.

That feels symbolic, too.


End file.
